


the sound, the light, the static

by a_big_apple



Series: and it's bright [11]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Healing, Trauma, hard conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_big_apple/pseuds/a_big_apple
Summary: Pearl’s on the couch reading the newspaper when Steven comes in, hanging his keys on the hook by the door. “Hey Pearl,” he greets, chipper, but his smile has a hint of nerves behind it.“Oh, Steven! I thought you and Greg were going to the car wash to run the Dondai through.”“I did! We did. Dad had some errands to run, so I came back without him.” When he sits down next to her, there’s a little crackle to his presence, a low-level hum of active power. She recognizes it now, for what it is. Stress. Anxiety. Something’s eating at him.She folds the paper, sets it aside. “I know that face,” she says, careful, gentle. “Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”
Relationships: Pearl & Steven Universe
Series: and it's bright [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1619890
Comments: 18
Kudos: 90





	the sound, the light, the static

**Author's Note:**

> It's a few years old, but I came up on [this gorgeous fanart](https://hotdognachos.tumblr.com/post/172184832549) today and thought, "They thought they were going to die." Then I wrote this fic, instead of working on any of the other wips I have going, because that's how it goes.

Pearl’s on the couch reading the newspaper when Steven comes in, hanging his keys on the hook by the door. “Hey Pearl,” he greets, chipper, but his smile has a hint of nerves behind it. 

“Oh, Steven! I thought you and Greg were going to the car wash to run the Dondai through.”

“I did! We did. Dad had some errands to run, so I came back without him.” When he sits down next to her, there’s a little crackle to his presence, a low-level hum of active power. She recognizes it now, for what it is. Stress. Anxiety. Something’s eating at him.

She folds the paper, sets it aside. “I know that face,” she says, careful, gentle. “Do you want to tell me what’s on your mind?”

He nods, two little jerks. “I have a question. But you don’t have to answer it, if you don’t want to.”

“Ah, one of those.” Something tightens in her chest, but she smiles. Calm. “I’ll do my best, Steven.”

“I know,” he replies, and finally looks up at her. He looks like he’s bracing for a storm. “I know you will, but I really mean it, it’s okay if it’s too hard to answer.”

His hands are white-knuckling his knees, and she covers one with her own. “Go ahead. It’s all right.” 

Looking down, he turns his hand over with intent focus, lacing their fingers together. “I’m working on...learning more about my powers, so I can understand why they happen. Learning more about Diamond powers, just, overall.”

“Is it helping you? To learn?”

His eyes find hers again and he smiles a little, more genuine this time. “Yeah, it is. So, I wanted to know...um, the Corruption blast. What...what was that _like_? For you?”

“Oh.” The heavy knot of fear in her tightens, protective; involuntarily she squeezes his hand.

“I’m sorry—”

“No, it’s all right. It’s okay, Steven. I just...give me a moment, to figure out how to explain.”

The high cut of his shoulders relaxes a little, and he scoots closer to press his arm along hers. “Okay.”

There’s a trick to it, she’s found. Handling the hot coals in her mind without getting burned. Light, quick touches. Feeling out the edges in the dark. “Your mother knew what was happening before I did,” she says. A safe place to start. “It was just...another day of war. Like any other. Rose, Garnet and me, planning our next move. Waiting to see what Homeworld’s reaction would be. It was just a few days after. After.”

_Careful Pearl. Don’t get lost._

A diamond is heavy, in the hand. Cool to the touch, and sharp at the point. _Sacred_. It felt almost _indecent_ to clutch it to her chest, the long tail of it that Rose kept hidden inside her body. The giveaway.

Steven squeezes her hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it.”

Pearl closes her eyes, takes a breath. Opens them again, and focuses on Steven. “She just…turned, like someone had called her name. Looked up at the sky. Toward Homeworld. We all knew, always, just where in the sky Homeworld was. I could see from her face that something was wrong, but I couldn’t see what. Then I felt this...prickle,” she says, scrunching the fingers of her other hand like a skittering spider. “Humans...you have these tiny hairs, that stand up? I think it’s like that.”

“Fight or flight,” Steven murmurs, and Pearl nods.

“Then there was a sound, far away, like music but not. Like feedback, music gone wrong somehow. The sky was brightening, too fast for sunrise, and I thought—something’s coming, and we have to warn the others. Garnet looked...just...frozen. Too many possibilities, or too horrible, and that was.”

“Scary,” Steven fills in, quiet. 

“It all happened so _fast_. Your mother made a shield, not enormous, but _thick_. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run, to get to the others. I was afraid to leave her. There wasn’t time to choose; she just grabbed me around the waist, and then Garnet, and pulled us in tight.”

Pearl was _bruised_ , Rose clutched her so tight. A band of yellowy-blue, tipped with five dark points where Pearl’s ribs would be, if she bothered to have them. The sound, the light, the _static_ , was coming so quick and vast—

“I thought we were going to die,” she says, and immediately regrets it. “I’m sorry, that’s too much, I didn’t mean—”

“I want to know, Pearl. Whatever you want to tell me.”

“We’re supposed to be doing this the other way around now,” she says, covering her face with her hand; Steven presses in harder against her side.

“We’re also supposed to be honest,” he says. “I’m telling the truth. I want to know, and I’m okay to hear it. If you’re okay to say it.”

She expects the crackly feeling to still be coming off of him—that impending danger feeling—but it’s not. Just human warmth and human smells, a little gas and soap from the car wash, his shampoo. She slips her hand from his to wrap it around him instead, and he lets her fold him close.

“I don’t know how to explain how... _much_ it was. How huge, how _loud_. I closed my eyes, but I was blinded even through my eyelids. I thought the sound would shatter me. When it was over I couldn’t even stand. But her shield held. Her shield held, against the other three Diamonds combined, Steven. That’s how much she wanted to protect us. The two of us that she could protect, in that instant.” Pearl tucks her fingers into Steven’s curls, strokes them back from his face. “That’s your power, Steven. That’s what’s inside of you.”

His sharp exhale puffs against her chest. He makes an abortive sound, like he’s testing and rejecting what to say inside his mind. “I can’t...protect everyone,” he admits, clipped and pained.

“Neither could she,” Pearl murmurs into his hair, “but that’s not what I mean. It’s not about protecting, or helping. It’s about you. What you want, you can make happen. Your mother used that for good, and for bad. She tried to fill the empty places inside her with it, but it didn’t work.”

“Then...what do I fill them _with_?” Steven whispers, and she squeezes him. Over his head, her eyes fall on the front door, the hook where his keys hang. It’s been months since he moved out. They all left the hook alone for a while—silly, a little painful, a reminder. But when Greg gets home, he’ll hang the van keys there. Maybe an umbrella; the sky outside is washed with graying clouds. Life continues, and sometimes, Steven comes back.

“I’m still figuring that out myself,” she says, quiet. “But I think maybe...we just have to hold them. Be kind to ourselves, and let the empty spaces be empty—and after a while, they start to fill in again, when you’re not looking. If you dig a hole in the sand, wind and water and time will smooth it over, right?”

Steven laughs, a little watery. “I’m gonna tell that to my therapist. She’ll like it.”

“I hope so. Or at the very least, if I’ve given you bad advice she’ll correct it,” Pearl replies, wry. “That does take the pressure off a bit.”

“Well, I’ll let you know what she says. And we can...hold our empty spaces together.”

She presses her face into his curls; this close, his shampoo smells like flowers. “I’d like that.”


End file.
